Getting started with the Creality CR-6 SE 3D printer

Ryan3D Printing, cr6-se, creality

I noticed an uptick in interest for the Creality 6-SE 3D printer lately (either because the price is dropped a bit end of last year, or because people are buying second hand). Since I’ve had mine since it was initially released on kickstarter, I thought I’d add some useful insights and links for people getting started with one.

My current CR6-SE setup

First off: it’s capable of making really consistent quality and precise prints for an FDM printer. That being said, the initial design and QA felt a bit rushed, and even if the newer models being produced now have fixed all the initial issues, there are still a few small things you should definitely do to upgrade the printer. For all the things I mention here, there are plenty of videos and more detailed information out there, google them if you are unsure or want more details.

Printing small minis
Printer calibration test

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unboxing Checklist

Ok, so you have the printer in front of you and are new to all this. Have a look at the following checklist to get it set up and make sure everything is working as intended: https://gist.github.com/Sebazzz/030d21c606413e22cbd77d8df9fb8b17

Firmware

The official firmware is a bit lacking in features and doesn’t make full use of the Marlin firmware it is based off. There is a community maintained firmware version that is far superior and add a lot of functionality and fixes: https://github.com/CR6Community/Marlin/releases

The firmware updates both the main motherboard and the firmware for the display.

Motherboard

Bigtreetech has a drop in replacement motherboard that also fixes a lot of the issues with the initial Creality motherboard. I’m using this motherboard and have been more than happy with it.

Alternative Motherboard from Bigtreetech

Daughterboard (Hotend)

If your hotend daughterboard breaks, it can be hard to find a replacement. What is sometimes easier to find is a complete hotend assembly (e.g. on aliexpress, it has the whole hotend assembly, strain gauge, daughterboard, hotend with heater and thermistor, fans and backplate).

Full Hotend Assembly

My tips

  • Don’t tie the ribbon cable to the hotend (black) and the bowden tube (white, filament moves through it) together. The hotend is connected to the strain gauge (which is used for the automatic bed leveling and triggers at around 160g of pressure if calibrated correctly). Pulling/pushing on the bowden tube can influence the sensitivity of the automatic bed leveling. This also means that if you make any modifications to the hotend assembly (especially to fans, cover or duct), you might have to recalibrate the strain gauge (there is a small potentiometer on the daughterboard on the hotend, it’s super finicky to adjust, I suggest using a kitchen scale and the LED should light up blue at around 160g).
  • Before you print anything else, print this filimant guide thing:4677617 it snaps in place between the extruder and the runout sensor and makes it infinitely simpler to feed filament into the system. Trust me, it’s a quick print and will make handling filament so much easier.

    Filament guide between runout sensor and extruder
  • If you want a quieter printer, replace the motherboard and power fans. I use Noctua versions of the fans (will need a step down from 24V to 12V for the motherboard fan), but any quiet fan will do. You will want to print an alternate cover for the psu that has space for the larger fan: thing:4665448. Since the fans extend farther down than the original design, you should also add/print risers to the feet of the printer to lift everything a few centimeters.

    Printed covers for motherboard and power supply
  • If you plan on updating firmware more regularly, you might want to extend the sdcard externally (so you don’t have to take apart the display to get to the display board each time). Just get a simple/cheap extender off amazon, you can either bring the cable outside at the bottom of the board, or through the ventilation slots on the back.

    External sdcard access to update display firmware
  • The standard glas printing surface is OK. I’ve also had good experience using the Creality PEI magnetic bed (has a rougher surface) and a magnetic WhamBam surface for a smoother finish.

 

Another list on reddit of helpful things to know: So you just ordered your CR-6 SE…

This should be enough to get you started 🙂

Board game organizer for Andor Junior / Andor: The Family Fantasy Game

Ryanandor junior, boardgame organizer

One thing I like to use my 3D printer for is improving board games. Especially when it comes to all the tokens and figures and whatnot, we like to use foam core and 3D printed elements to keep things better organized.
This is an insert I made for the kid’s version of Andor (it’s marketed under a few different names depending on the language, here in Germany it’s called “Andor Junior”, Board Game Geek lists it as “Andor: The Family Fantasy Game”).

The insert is the same height as the box (so you can also stand the box upright without everything falling out), and holds all the small tokens and dice.

Board game geek link: Andor: The Family Fantasy Game
Thingiverse link to the 3D files: thing:5337354

I used tinkercad to design this insert (which I use a lot for these kinds of things), for more technical designs I use the free version of Fusion 360.

Creating systemd service files for docker compose

Ryandocker, systemd

I’ve recently been moving a few of my services from bare metal installations over to docker containers. Normally I use ansible to deploy everything in the right place (and you should be doing that too), but I have a “playground” to try out stuff before promoting it to “properly deployed on a different VM with ansible”.

The following script came in handy to simplify the process of creating systemd service files for the docker services.

It assumes that you are in a directory with a docker-compose.yml  and the directory name will be the service name, e.g. you are in /opt/watchtower/  and there is a docker-compose.yml  here -> the service name will be watchtower .

 

Playing “The Ascent”

RyanGaming

I work in the gaming industry, but normally don’t talk about games much because a) I work on the technical side and b) there are so many other blogs, outlets, news and review sites that do this every day that I don’t feel I can add a perspective that is unique (and there is no sense in writing redundant blog posts).

That being said, I really enjoyed one of the games I recently played, so I decided to write about it anyway. The game is called The Ascent and it’s an isometric top-down shooter in a cyberpunk setting.

There is a wide variety of weapons that you can level-up throughout the game (although the resources required to level up weapons are scarce at higher levels, so you can only bring a few of the weapons to max level). A few different weapon damage types are available, that work better or worse against different enemies. And to further customize your character, there are a few abilities and skills available.

The story was engaging, kept me busy with both main missions and side missions. Missions always have a suggested level with is useful because if you head into an area you aren’t ready for you will be killed swiftly 😉 Aside from the story, I also enjoyed the graphical level of detail. No obvious repeating of elements, each area/level had a very distinct feeling to it, even backgrounds or parts of the map where players can’t navigate to were very detailed. Music was also very well picked for the different game areas.

Difficulty scales fairly moderate. The beginning can be tough at times, but as long as you keep leveling up your weapons, and making sure you have the right gear equipped, it’s pretty smooth sailing. Also, remember to match up weapon type with enemy type.

A recent update introduced a “Game+” mode with tougher enemies that allows you to re-play the game with you character from the normal playthrough (i.e. keep your stats/skills/inventory, but the enemies also start out at around level 30). Game+ mode is nice if you really want to max out all the skills or level up a few more weapons.

There were a few cons too, in coop multiplayer mode we had a few crashes and quests getting stuck (requiring us to restart the game). But all in all it was playable and we mad it through the whole game. Multiplayer had a very “added in later” feel to it, not something designed to be a integral feature of the game (e.g. “guests” don’t see any of the useful mini-map markers).
Also, there is little to no replay value in the game. I did a second playthrough in Game+ mode, and it felt more like a speedrun focusing on the main mission and picking up side missions in the same area for extra EXP.

All in all I really enjoyed the game, it wasn’t too difficult or grindy, and travel times not too bad as long as you kept an eye on your missions and made liberal use of the taxi and subway system. I got all the achievements in the game, and the one that took the longest was “Die 100 times”.

Using paperless-ngx to manage your paper documents digitally.

Ryanocr, paperless

Paperless is a document management system that helps you manage digital scans of your documents. I’ve been using it for a while, but as with many projects the developer(s) lost motivation/time to keep the project up-to-date, a fork was made (paperless-ng) which after time also died off. Now a few developers got together, worked through the backlog of issues and forked the next generation as “paperless-ngx”.

There is a Changelog for the specific changes.

Short version: I have my scanner set up to be able to store scans on a network share as PDFs, and paperless monitors the same share for new documents. If it finds a new file, it performs OCR on it (saves the PDF as well as the text) and runs user defined rules against it (e.g. detecting the date of the document, or correspondents, or what kind of document it is, …). It actually makes it very easy to manage physical documents. I just pop them in the scanner, select the destination share, and that’s it, everything else happens automatically. So if I need to search for documents needed to do my taxes. I can do it digitally and not have to go through folders with physical paper.

It can also ingest images or office documents, just toss them in the directory the application monitors for ingesting documents (or use the “Upload” button in the application).

I’m not a big fan of the default dark theme, but a normal light theme is still available.

All in all, it’s pretty nifty, so have a look if this is something that you might find useful.